From this moment forward there will be no looking back, regardless of the danger. You either fight evil or you don’t; you either get what you are after or lose it; there is nothing in between. He takes a deep breath and slips into the night.
THE ROTHERHITHE DEN
Sherlock Holmes takes a very long route to his destination. First, he heads straight north, then west, in the opposite direction he intends eventually to go, leading whoever might be following him on a wild-goose chase all the way up to Regent’s Park. In the dim lights and shadows of the elm trees in that huge green leisure area he sees packs of London’s poor: raggedly dressed, huddled together in groups for the night, their children wailing.
“A farthing, old sir, or just an ’alf?” begs one aged woman who approaches him on her knees, just wisps of dirty hair on her head, her face, burnt by the summer’s broiling sun, the color and texture of an old leather rugby ball.
He keeps moving, hearing the faint sounds of the caged animals crying in the park’s Zoological Gardens, rushes past the circles of exotic flowers planted by the Royal Botanical Society, and then plunges south, through Hyde Park, into wealthy Kensington and Chelsea, and all the way down to the river. There he passes by the lewd amusement grounds of The Cremorne Gardens where El Niño Farini first made his name in London, high in the night air. He can hear the Gardens even though he is a quarter-mile away: the swirling dance music on its outdoor stages, the dramatic sounds of a circus at its amphitheater, and the roiling crowds.
He looks up and sees a balloon, lit with gaslights, rising above the Gardens, just as roman candles explode all around it, lighting up the banks of the river for miles. The first bang makes Sherlock jump. Oh to be there!
But instead he crosses over Battersea Bridge and begins a long journey along the south bank of the Thames, back to the frightening desolation of Rotherhithe.
It doesn’t seem like anyone has been following him. In fact, he hasn’t sensed a trailer since he left the apothecary’s. Bell’s clothes are feeling heavy as he plods along on his gigantic detour. Certain that they aren’t needed anymore, and remembering that the old man had told him they were rags anyway, he slips under the bridge and frees himself of the overcoat, fez, and medical bag, tossing them into a large dustbin near the water. He starts off again, feeling lighter.
Despite lightening his load, he’s exhausted by the time he reaches the southern entrance of the Thames Tunnel. That isn’t good – he needs to be strong and alert. His face still aches from Grimsby’s blows. He struggles along Rotherhithe Street in the dark, his eyes searching for the Asphalte Works.
He spots them, smelling worse tonight, it seems, looking darker, their black chimneys blacker. And there are the crumbling warehouses.
He crouches against the broken-down wall of an abandoned soap factory and looks across wide Rotherhithe and down the much smaller, cobblestone street that runs away from it toward the river and past the warehouses. His first plan is to try to do as much of this as he can from a distance. If he is lucky, he’ll see Dante again, maybe talking to members of the Brixton Gang, hopefully doing something that gives away their identity.
But the luck that Sigerson Bell wished for him isn’t with him tonight.
He waits, and no one comes. The warehouses stay black and silent except for a dim light and distant, muffled sounds in the upstairs floor of the last one near the river.
He realizes how ridiculous it is to think that he can do anything from this far away, but how unprepared he is to do much more. He has no idea what even one member of the gang looks like and the belief that they would somehow do something that would give them away doesn’t make sense.
No, he has to go over there … right to the warehouses. There are times, his father used to say, even in the world of science, when you must gamble, when plans are not possible and nothing is certain. That’s when the word experiment really means what it says.
Sherlock has to experiment; and hope this doesn’t blow up in his face.
He rises and darts across Rotherhithe Street and onto the lane that fronts the desolate buildings. The sounds of his footsteps echo, and just like the night before, it seems there are many of them … more than his own. What a time, after all his precautions, to discover that he’s indeed being followed! But when he looks around, no one is in sight, ahead or behind. He keeps moving, close to the buildings, all his senses alert.
Just as he suspected, there doesn’t appear to be anyone inside … except in that last one, where those faint sounds seem to be coming from. That building is so far from the main road, and close to the river, that raised voices in its inner sanctums can’t be clearly made out by passersby unless they are right up close.
Though it terrifies him to even contemplate, Sherlock realizes that he is going to have to enter the building. All the doors on the other warehouses are broken, and knocked in, but when he gets to this last one, he can see that its entrance is closed tightly. He slowly approaches it … very slowly … then stands with his back plastered against the dirty brick wall. No one inside can see him there, even if they look through the door’s little barred window or straight down from an upper floor. The sounds are indeed coming from this warehouse, somewhere upstairs. He gently nudges the thick wooden door with one hand.
It creaks open.
It must have been unlatched. That seems strange, in fact it doesn’t make sense, but he crouches down and slips inside anyway. Instantly, two small figures fly at him! They are black and oily, and scream. Crows. They swoop past his head and out into the night, crying out as if warning him. The muffled sounds from upstairs pause for a second … and then resume. Sherlock lies on the dirt floor, his heart pounding. Crows always have reasons for being places; they can sense impending death and how to profit from it. They understand evil, accept it as a part of life, especially when it is perpetrated by human beings, which is often. The crows know something is afoot in this broken-down place: the bloody Brixton Gang would be a perfect group of human beings for these clever birds to keep their eyes on.
Though it is dim in here, Sherlock can make out the room’s cluttered innards: monster coils of ropes for boats, long wood poles that look like pieces of masts, moldy sections of sails, and oily remnants of steam engines. It smells earthy, and like the river.
The upstairs sounds are getting clearer. It is plain that they aren’t solely human. The boy hears a dog snarling and the squeals and painful cries of other, smaller animals; and desperate scurrying and scrambling across the floor. Men seem to be encouraging them. It sounds like fighting and it frightens Sherlock to his Wellington shoes.
Perhaps it is time to go?
But he doesn’t know anything of value yet. He has to get closer. He spots a crumbling staircase that rises straight up in the center of this fishy, foul-smelling ground floor.
What if I go up there?
He wants to move toward it, but can’t. He is simply too scared. His whole body is shaking.
Then the big, outside door closes behind him.
Sherlock drops flat on the floor and lies as still as possible. The garbled sounds from above pause again and then resume. On the ground level, there is silence. No footsteps, nothing. Sherlock waits. Was it just the wind? But the humid night had been still outside. He twists his head around and peers in the direction of the door.
Nothing.
Going back to that entrance seems as perilous now as moving to the staircase and up its rotting steps. So he waits a little longer and then crawls to the center of the room. At the stairs, his hawk-like nose almost resting on the stinking bottom plank, he casts his eyes upward. Sweat drips off his forehead and into his eyes, making them sting. There’s a board pulled across the opening at the top and a small crack of light emitting from the next floor. He can hear those horrific sounds better here; can clearly make out the dog’s growls and cries of pain, the other animals’ screams and whistles, and men shouting encouragement.